'Following the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, Rupert Murdoch said his greatest regret was that he had let his father down. Popular history views Sir Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) as a fearless war correspondent – author of the famous letter that led to the evacuation of the Anzac force from Gallipoli – and a principled journalist and dedicated family man who, on his death, left a single provincial newspaper to Rupert. This benign reputation is unsurprising: the two previously published biographies of Keith were Murdoch family commissions.
But is there another side to the story of Keith’s success and the origins of News Corporation?
With controversial revelations – of forgotten fiancées, First World War propaganda operations, the promotion of eugenics, and the sensationalising of a schoolgirl’s murder leading to the execution of an innocent man – Before Rupert is an unflinching prequel to the saga of the Murdoch family’s rise to power, and details how Keith Murdoch ruthlessly exploited his influence and networks to gain control over Australia’s media and political landscape. (Publication summary)
'Tom D.C. Roberts, winner of last year’s National Biography Award for Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty, delivered this year’s National Biography Award Lecture.' (Introduction)
'A love of biography is driven by the universal hunger to better understand other human lives, according to Dr Peter Cochrane. “It provides us with that sense of how things are for each of us, or indeed for the lives of people we could not begin to imagine but for the biographer’s capacity to recreate the otherness of such people and their social world.”' (Introduction)
'A new biography reveals a complex and contentious figure'
'A love of biography is driven by the universal hunger to better understand other human lives, according to Dr Peter Cochrane. “It provides us with that sense of how things are for each of us, or indeed for the lives of people we could not begin to imagine but for the biographer’s capacity to recreate the otherness of such people and their social world.”' (Introduction)
'Tom D.C. Roberts, winner of last year’s National Biography Award for Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty, delivered this year’s National Biography Award Lecture.' (Introduction)
